Glossary is usually defined as an alphabetical list of technical terms in some specialized field of knowledge. This knowledge base glossary provides a collection of knowledge base documents that define many technical terms. These terms are arranged alphabetically, but you can quickly jump to a specific term by selecting its first letter from the index of the knowledge base glossary below.

A type of acquired immunity whereby resistance to a disease is built up by either having the disease or receiving a vaccine against it.

Building blocks of proteins. There are twenty common amino acids: alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, and valine.

Protein produced by humans and higher animals in response to the presence of a specific antigen.

A substance that, when introduced into the body, induces an immune response by a specific antibody.

Blood serum containing specific antibodies against an antigen. Antisera are used to confer passive immunity to many diseases.

Weakened; with reference to vaccines, made from pathogenic organisms that have been treated so that they are unable to cause disease.

A condition in which the body mounts an immune response against one of its own organs or tissues.

A class of lymphocytes, released from the bone marrow, which produce antibodies.

On the DNA molecule, one of the four chemical units that, according to their order and pairing, represent the different amino acids. The four bases are: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). In RNA, uracil (U) substitutes for thymine.

Two nucleotide bases on different strands of the nucleic acid molecule that bond together. The bases can pair in only one way: adenine with thymine (DNA) or uracil (RNA), and guanine with cytosine.